


Measure of Vertigo

by whitefang (radialarch)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Gen, quote!fic, references to TRF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-03 17:35:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radialarch/pseuds/whitefang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The note that Sherlock <em>doesn't</em> leave John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Measure of Vertigo

**Author's Note:**

> _“J'écrivais des silences, des nuits, je notais l'inexprimable. Je fixais des vertiges.”_  
>  (“I committed silences and darknesses to paper, I recorded the inexpressible. I took the measure of vertigo.”)  
> \- Arthur Rimbaud (tr. Jeremy Harding), from "Delirium II: Alchemy of the Word"

John.

There’s a box underneath my bed. It’s not locked. Perhaps you’ve seen it. But you’ve never asked about it.

They’re my case-files, from before. Before I acquired a blogger, that is. 

(Objectively, it’s been two years since we met. But memory is much more mutable than facts.)

You’ve wondered about my old cases. Wanted to do write-ups for those too. I never let you.

Crime is a many-faceted thing. You think you’ve seen it all – you haven’t.

I haven’t. But I’ve gotten close.

Those files don’t tell of adventures and good triumphing over evil, John. They tell of fear and desperation and silence. And sometimes (often), the good doesn’t triumph.

It’s a dark world. (Maybe you knew that already. But you smile as if you don’t.)

That’s what Moriarty is, some manifestation of darkness that should have gone unexpressed. A mistake. 

Yet he’s not unlike me.

And that’s why I’m standing up here, taking the measure of vertigo.

I don’t regret anything, you know. But I would like to apologise – for bringing you into this in the first place, for all the smaller failures that led up to me, here, on this rooftop. For lying.

There’s a plan. Of course there’s a plan. But plans can go wrong – _do_ go wrong.

So good-bye, John – if I should never come back.

**Author's Note:**

> My beta has something longer (and better! hopefully), but this just...happened. I don't even know, guys.


End file.
